Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 13:35:57 -0400 From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (Hariette Spierings) Subject: M-NEWS: El Diario Number 39 - In English SHINING PATH STRIKES AGAIN - ATE-VITARTE ATTACKED Such were the Peruvian press headlines reporting the military action of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) against the police barracks and Town Hall in the district of Ate-Vitarte (Lima). This guerilla raid took place on Thursday May 15 as part of the campaign of celebration of the 17th Anniversary of the Initiation of the People's War. Lending support to the struggle of the itinerant workers in Lima and the rest of Peruvian provinces was also one of its objectives: As the public is aware, the mayor of Lima had launched ferocious police repression against thousands of itinerant peddlers eking a meagre living in the streets of the capital of Peru. This stunning guerilla attack was not an action isolated from others taking place in different parts of the country. In the Alto Huallaga region, the Maoist guerillas mobilized main columns of the People's Liberation Army in launching lightning assaults on military and police strongholds. On May 9, along the "Marginal" Highway, near Jose Crespo y Castillo district, they ambushed an army patrol inflicting 4 fatal casualties among the soldiery. In the same area, in January 31 this year a Maoist column composed of 200 fighters had surrounded and seized control of the Highway impeding all vehicular transit for 24 hours. In this battle, the guerillas had fought off a Russian made armoured attack helicopter, raking it with heavy ground to air fire. Ayacucho, Junin, Huanuco, Huancavelica, and other Peruvian departments were also shaken by powerful guerilla actions. The mercenary Peruvian press - which relishes to support the counter-insurgency plans of the regime - was forced to breach the news black-out strategy they use against the Maoist guerillas and to console themselves screaming in despair. All those dreaming of "defeat of Shining Path" were brought down to earth with a mighty shudder. Here, a brief transcription from some of the information published on May 16 by the most important daily papers in Peru: The Raid (verbatim from the Lima press). "Jaime Antezana and Carlos Tapia, anti-insurgency specialists, said that the raid by Shining Path against the police headquarters and the Town Hall of the Ate-Vitarte district aims to remind us that their organisation still exists and that they have already began their Maoist campaign to commemorate May 17 1980, as the Day of Initiation of the Armed Struggle (ILA)". "According to the anti-terrorist police, the raid would have been carried out by around 10 members of Shining Path. Four or five took positions at the back of the police building, three were in charge of launching the "car bomb", while three others acted as a "containment force". "A bomb went off downwards from the slopes of the hill behind the police headquarters while the police building was raked by gunfire". "The troops repelled the attack from the side where the shots were being fired. Simultaneously two dark coloured vehicles approached from the Central Highway. >From these vehicles, machine gun fire erupted against the main entrance of the police building. One of the vehicles came to a halt and three unidentified people made their get away. Seconds later, the vehicle - converted into a car bomb - exploded". "One of the terrorists then took off in a car while the other two escaped on foot into the local market place ....". "A van loaded with more than 50 kilograms of dynamite and anfo which Shining Path terrorists planted at the gates of the police headquarters in the district of Ate-Vitarte (6 miles East from Main Square in Lima) exploded". "The police building was practically demolished .... Eight policemen and four civilians were seriously wounded as a consequence of the explosion ..... The action was claimed by Shining Path by means of leaflets distributed by support personnel of that subversive organisation". "In their document, the senderistas claim that the Police is "genocidal", they commemorate the Initiation of the Armed Struggle (ILA- May 17, 1980, and make reference to the issue of the itinerant peddlers .... " "Exactly at 03:16:25 in the morning, the enormous explosion of this "car-bomb" stopped the clock in the office of the mayor of Vitarte, Enrique Pajuelo Roldan. The scene from the outside was right out of Dante's Inferno and inside, it was a nighmare for those who at that moment found themselves in the buildings affected ....." "A preliminary valuation from the authorities in the zone established that material damage in a five block radius had been substantial ...." "After one minute of ceaseless gunfire, the devastating car bomb planted by four provincial looking youths went off. The blast left behind a 10 feet wide crater on the tarmac of the Central Highway. The police building was demolished. Some of its walls, collapsed like a pack of cards. Doors and windows strewn in all directions several yards away. Nearly 100% of the Town Hall building was also blown-up by the expansive waves".
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